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Stead, Philip C.

Follow That Frog!

32 pp. | Holiday/Porter | February, 2021 | Trade ISBN 978-0-8234-4426-7 $18.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-8234-4894-4 $11.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by Matthew Cordell. Sadie and her sensational Aunt Josephine are back for a third adventure (Special Delivery, rev. 3/15; The Only Fish in the Sea, rev. 7/17), which starts with a knock at the door: "Close the curtains, Sadie! And turn out the lights! It could be a vacuum salesman. Or more likely, a suitor." After a lifetime of traveling the world, Aunt J declares she simply wants rest, but the thought of these previous escapades sends her reminiscing about her time as a nine-year-old in Peru cataloging frogs for science. With Cordell's well-suited scratchy pen-and-ink lines and soft watercolor washes, the story Aunt Josephine relates to Sadie (when a giant frog swallows one of Josephine's admirers, she hurries after it to make sure the amphibian specimen is catalogued properly) plays out hilariously in giant thought bubbles while a morning breakfast-in-bed routine with Sadie carries on in the background. Text and art duel with each other to make the antics more and more outlandish, and every page-turn yields an unexpected and wonderfully ridiculous plot development. Josephine finds herself headed toward the Panama Canal, where she boards a bathtub and tries to heed her own grandmother's final words ("If nothing else, Josephine, see Paris") but winds up stranded on the Canary Islands after an encounter with some pirates. The story goes on to include a whale ride and more, but Aunt Josephine notes she has yet to see Paris or find that giant frog. All the while, someone keeps knocking at the door, where the perfect ending awaits on the other side.
Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

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